All About Seduction

Hero: John "Jack" Applegate
Heroine: Caroline "Caro" Broadhurst

The heroine is married, but not to the hero.  She married a much older man when she was fourteen.  Childless at twenty-nine, her husband commands her to take a lover.  As his third "barren" wife, he knows the problem is not hers.  (A doctor even looked at his seed in a microscope, a detail I'm not sure I wanted to know, even though I always want too much information.)  Her husband arranges for a hunting party; the irony is that he intends his wife to do the hunting (for a stallion/stud/sperm donor).  When an accident occurs at the mill (Mr. Broadhurst is the wealthy owner), Caroline brings the victim into their home.  The victim is none other than the man she's admired from afar: Jack Applegate.

Mr. Broadhurst is the Gothic villain in the story.  Pimping out his third wife is not his only treachery.  He is suspected of murdering his second wife (deemed a suicide), he hires a man to kill one of Caroline's marks (a man whom Caroline attempted to seduce), he is an apathetic employer, and perhaps the most damning of all, he beds his wife knowing he is sterile AND he doesn't even attempt to make the marital act comfortable, let alone pleasurable.  (I point this out tongue-in-cheek.)

The adultery aspect of All About Seduction didn't bother me at all; in fact, I was hoping Caroline would find sexual satisfaction with one of the house guests.  It irked me that none of the prospects seemed to be interested in Caroline's pleasure (Jack notwithstanding); it would have been nice for Caroline to enjoy pleasure by one man, only to discover ultimate pleasure with the man that she loved.

I read All About Seduction in a little over a week.  I wanted to read the story and couldn't wait for Jack and Caroline to finally get together.  By the time I was three-quarters into the book, I grew to loathe the incessant introspection and self-flagellation.  Caroline and Jack both lacked confidence and self-esteem.  They both felt unworthy of the attentions of the other.  I can understand feelings of inadequacy, but it went on too long.  There was too much attention paid to the internal workings of the characters's minds/motivations.  It grew tiresome.

All About Seduction ended with the most rushed ending I've ever read.  If ever there was a book where I felt the author was so tired of writing it that they tacked on an ending to make it stop, this was it.  I was not satisfied by the way the conclusion came up all of a sudden and tied everything up in tidy bows.  The ending itself (villain dead, hero and heroine married with children) was nice, but it seemed like a hollow victory.

I think better editing could have saved this book.  Cut out at least half of the introspection, give the conclusion a better transition, and flesh out the villain by making him a bit more sympathetic (not necessarily redeemable, but at least a little human; no one is all bad).  The romance between Caroline and Jack was sweet, but the distracting introspection and sloppy ending ruined this book for me.

I don't like rating books by a star or number system, so here's my rating system:
Bad=Quit reading the book
Fair=It was okay; I finished it
Good=I liked it
Great=I loved it; definitely would enjoy re-reading it someday


Rating for All About Seduction: Fair